Where They Hide — Thorough inspection with a bright flashlight is needed to reveal the location and extent of infestation. Likely hiding places include crevices, corners, and wall-floor junctures, especially behind clutter and stored items.
Reducing clutter affords fewer places for the spiders to hide and can enhance effectiveness of treatments. Brown recluse spiders may also live behind walls, and inhabit the voids within concrete block foundations. In infested garages, attics, basements and crawl spaces, the spiders, egg sacs, and distinctive shed skins are often found along joists, sills and rafters, as well as under rolled insulation. In living areas, they sometimes inhabit crevices behind and beneath beds and furniture, closets, clothing, shoes, and stored items.
When sorting through boxes or materials, wear long sleeves and gloves to avoid being bitten. Brown recluse spiders also live above suspended ceilings, behind baseboards and woodwork, and within ducts and registers.
Outdoors the spiders may be found in barns, sheds, woodpiles, and under anything laying on the ground. They also commonly reside behind shutters. Migration indoors can be reduced by moving firewood, building materials, and debris away from foundations. Sealing cracks and holes in a building's exterior can further help to keep these, and other pests, outdoors.
Some of the more common entry points for brown recluse spiders include gaps under doors, vents and utility penetrations, beneath the bottommost edge of siding, and where eaves and soffits meet the sides of buildings. Outdoor populations of brown recluse spiders are less common in the northern portions of its range. Use of Glue Traps — An excellent way to survey for brown recluse is to install flat, sticky cards known as glue traps. Often used to capture mice and cockroaches, the traps can be purchased online or at grocery, hardware or farm supply stores.
The best glue traps for capturing the spiders are flat, like thin pieces of sticky cardboard without a raised perimeter edge. The more glue traps used the better — dozens placed throughout a home will reveal areas where spiders are most abundant. Traps should be placed in corners and along baseboards and wall-floor junctures, especially behind furniture and clutter since spiders tend to travel in these areas.
Besides being useful for detection, glue traps can capture and kill large numbers of spiders, especially the males, which are more likely to wander into places where people are accidentally bitten. Ongoing eradication efforts can be judged by the number of new spiders caught in traps. Glue traps should be installed before applying insecticides since some products will cause spiders to become active and wander into traps.
Use of Insecticides — Brown recluse spider elimination will often require use of insecticides. Some spiders will not be caught in glue traps, especially the adult females, which stay hidden more so than male spiders. Insecticides should be applied into cracks and other areas where spiders are likely to be hiding, attempting to contact directly as many as possible. Liquid, aerosol, and dust formulations may be employed.
Dust insecticides are particularly effective for treating cracks along baseboards, sills, joists and rafters in basements, crawl spaces, and attics. Dusts also work well when treating under insulation, within voids of concrete block foundations, and behind light switch and outlet plates to contact spiders traveling along wires from attics.
Apply the dust as a fine deposit barely visible to the naked eye. Spiders and other pests tend to avoid powdery accumulations much as we would avoid walking through a snowdrift. Insecticides can also be sprayed into harborages and places where spiders tend to travel. Effective ingredients e. The sprays can also be applied outdoors behind shutters, the bottommost edge of siding, along foundations, etc. As control measures are being implemented, precautions can be taken to further reduce the chance of being bitten.
Shoes and clothing should also be kept off floors, or at least shaken out before wearing. Remove excess clutter and store seldom used items in plastic storage containers. There may be some comfort in knowing that bites are a rare occurrence, even in dwellings where brown recluses are abundant. Please check with your local county agent or regulatory official before using any pesticide mentioned in this publication.
When indoors, brown recluses favor cardboard because it mimics rotting tree bark. They can also be found in boxes, clothing, shoes, tires, bedding, furniture and storage areas.
And if you spot one of these spiders, there may be many more hiding in your home. Though it is one of the most poisonous spiders in the U. Often, bacterial infections and other medical conditions are inappropriately identified as brown recluse bites. Like the black widow spider, the brown recluse bites in defense and not out of instinct. Bites frequently occur when people put on clothing a brown recluse is sheltering in.
While seldom deadly, brown recluse bites can be painful and produce open, ulcerating sores. Brown recluse bites are usually red with faint fang marks. In the next 12 to 24 hours, the center of the bite may turn hard and white and blister before turning blue or black as the tissue dies. In most cases, the bite will heal in a few days or weeks with minimal scarring.
Occasionally, more severe reactions can include redness, blistering, discoloration, tissue death and even scarring. Bites usually go unnoticed for a few hours. Then symptoms progress from itching to severe pain at the bite site. Victims could also experience nausea, vomiting, fever, muscle pain, swelling and convulsions.
In the most severe cases, a brown recluse spider bite can lead to a form of tissue death known as necrosis. These volcano lesions can leave open wounds the size of a human hand, and take months for the damaged, gangrenous tissue to slough away. In these cases, opioids, anti-inflammatories, antibiotics and skin grafts are necessary, and deep scaring may result. Immediately after a bite, clean the area with soap and water, apply ice to decrease pain and swelling, take acetaminophen for the pain and elevate the area above the heart to prevent the spread of the venom.
There is no commercially effective antivenin, so if you suspect that you have been bitten by a brown recluse, go to the emergency room immediately and bring the spider for identification purposes. Brown Recluse spiders are not aggressive and they only bite if they feel threatened.
This may occur when a person puts on an item of clothing infested with a spider or rolls onto a spider in their sleep. Their penchant for building webs in boxes and old furniture can also result in contact bites. Most bites occur during the summer when humans encounter these spiders in attics, barns, basements, closets and woodpiles. When threatened, brown recluses typically play dead or flee to avoid conflict.
This spider typically bites when pressed against the skin, such as when it becomes tangled in clothes, towels, bedding and work gloves. Many people are bitten after putting on clothes they had not worn in a while or they had left on the floor. To avoid brown recluse spiders, keep clothes off the floor, store clothing and shoes inside plastic containers, and shake out items before wearing or washing. The spider can be killed first before you bring it with you; just be sure not to squish it so much that no one can tell what it is.
Doctors treat people who have been bitten by a brown recluse spider with different types of medications like antibiotics, antihistamines, or pain medicines. Rarely, a skin graft might be needed if the skin is really damaged at the area of the bite.
A skin graft is when a small amount of skin is removed from some part of the body and put in a place where skin is damaged to create new skin. The best way to avoid getting bitten by brown recluse spiders is to be careful in areas where they like to spend time. Don't play around in rock piles or woodpiles. If you are working outside in the yard in big piles of logs or leaves, wear gloves. Be sure to shake out blankets and clothing that have been stored in the attic or the basement, or if they have been in a closet but not used for a long time.
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